I got a Nikon Z6 as soon as it came out. It was a slightly impetuous as I’d only tried a Z7 briefly at an event and then for a weekend – both thanks to the Flash Centre in Birmingham. I was uncertain that it would be better than my Nikon D750 for jazz and other gigs but I needn’t have worried. It’s very, very good and the key things I wanted have proved effective – more focus points, focus tracking across the frame and quieter shutter.

So far I’ve used it at five gigs Soweto Kinch with Xhosa Cole support, Malija, Perfect Houseplants, Midlands World Music Consortium and Matt Ratcliffe’s Unity Quartet and I’m very happy with the results.

First three images at the Midlands World Music Consortium Launch at Centrala in Birmingham. Xhosa Cole playing in support of Soweto Kinch at the Hare and Hounds, Birmingham and Dudley Phillips and Mark Lockheart at the end of a Perfect Houseplants gig at Birmingham Jazz.

]]>Two New Projectshttp://www.brianhomer.com/two-new-projects/
Thu, 08 Nov 2018 00:30:09 +0000http://www.brianhomer.com/?p=449I’m getting going on two projects which will surface in 2019. First with Multistory and Emma Chetcuti I am curating an exhibition of self portraits for the Blast! Festival which will include images by David Attie, Handsworth Self Portrait, Jubilee Arts and The Public. It’s the 40th anniversary of HSP and there will also be a separate show at Mac that Derek Bishton is involved in. And in my thoughts while doing the project will be John Reardon and Pete James who sadly passed earlier this year. Without the work and dedication both of them this would not be happening. #multistory#BlastPhotoFest2019#Sandwell#AmbitionForExcellence

The second project is called Everyday Jazz Lives working with Pedro Cravinho and BCU Jazz Research and Nicholas Gebhardt. We’ll be interviewing and photographing six Birmingham based musicians with a show in the Spring of 2019 and a presentation at the Rhythm Changes Conference in Graz in March. Now to find the time…

First a confession – I’ve never actually owned a copy of the Beatles’ original or any other Beatles records. In fact they almost passed me by. In 1962 I was moving into the Sixth Form and my family home had little music in it. No record player just bits and pieces of radio.

It turned out that all the people in the Upper Sixth were into trad revivalist jazz and all the kids in the Fifth Form were into the new popular beat combo The Beatles. I was kind of marooned in the middle.

Some of my mates did swing towards the Beatles and they even tried to get me to be their lead singer. That was a non-starter. Once I almost saw the Beatles in Handsworth, Birmingham. We all trooped up to an old cinema in Rookery Road but it was a false rumour and they never showed. I did listen to some of their early BBC radio shows but that was it. But I must have absorbed it over the years probably from sharing a flat with people into pop as it turns out I know all the words.

By 1966 jazz and blues had somehow become my thing and I had a record player at last and when Pepper came out in ’67 its was noticed but I was only really interested in the bits that were somewhat jazzy – When I’m 64 particularly.

In the late 60s the UK was starting to emerge from the deadly dull and stultifying 50s. And instead of aggressive colonialism we were creating music and culture that was spreading round the world. But we were still a decade or so from fully joining the European project.

Listening now to Django Bates’ brilliant reworking of Sergeant Pepper of course its clear that The Beatles distilled something significant about that shift from 50s isolationism into a brighter place in the world.

What Bates has done on record and with the live shows – I caught him and the Frankfurt Radio Big Band with Eggs Laid by Tigers at Ronnie’s in September 2017 – is a truly fantastic homage to the original. As he says he kept the key changes and the structure of the songs – in fact in a weird way it sounds like how Sgt Pepper should always be played. But its not the same – he has layered in new, but respectful, tones and voicing in his arrangements. In fact its much more whole orchestrated work than the original which, although advanced for its time, still feels like a four piece band with additional parts.

From the opening chords of the title track at Ronnie’s a smile automatically spreads across your face. It feels familiar and yet excitingly different. The sound is full and balanced and its immediately apparent that despite being made up of three distinct parts Django has got the band playing as one – not a pop band backed by an orchestra but one brilliant big band.

There’s Django pulling the strings at the front with his mate Stuart Hall on stringed instruments, the 14 strong Frankfurt Band and then an actual pop band – the trio called Eggs Laid by Tigers from Denmark bang in the middle.

The Eggs lead singer Martin Ullits Dahl strolls on for the second number With a Little Help… and it’s immediately apparent that he has got this. He is unforced, natural and languid with a clear delivery. Seemingly without effort he pitches his tone somewhere between Liverpool and London, which is just right given the way Pepper mixes impressions of those two places. Nice touches are shaking hands with the audience as he leaves for a short lay out and coming back on with a cup of tea. How English and he’s Danish, but in retrospect it’s a clever nod to John drinking a cup of tea at the original recording of a Day in the Life if the clip on YouTube I found is right.

As well as directing the music with panache, Django plays significant solos and fills. But this is no normal play the head, solos, play the head again jazz – it’s full on orchestral playing with members of the Frankfurt band coming in and out of the soundscape. Eggs’ drummer and bassist Peter Bruun and Jonas Westergaard sound right at home providing a driving underpinning while avoiding the rather plodding bass and drums of the original.

The set is a complete triumph – massively enjoyable and there’s even a sing along version of Love is All You Need – is this a first for Ronnie’s – or any jazz club?

It’s the frisson of a line in a Day in the Life that brings you back round to where we are today in the UK. “The English Army had just won the war…” sung by a Dane backed by a German big band, directed by an Englishman who works as Professor of Jazz in Switzerland.

And that’s it for me. Amid all the deeply unpleasant Brexit retrenchment that seems to want us to return to those dull and isolated pre-60s days it strikes me that our culture does not need to be defended. Our values are not under attack. This gig, this band and Django’s music are a fantastic demonstration of the positive power of culture, of how it works both ways. Culture interacts and changes and the best of us is when we allow that to happen.

]]>Let it be Toldhttp://www.brianhomer.com/let-it-be-told/
Sun, 12 Apr 2015 22:23:26 +0000http://www.brianhomer.com/?p=352A personal take on South African Jazz

Last year Peter Bacon asked what’s the attraction of Township jazz to British jazz fans in previewing the Township Comets at Birmingham Jazz in October 2014. Later, in November, at the London Jazz Festival there was a significant South African presence although Peter questioned whether it was truly genuine and after the Dedication Orchestra and Abdullah Ibrahim gigs there was some criticism about conservative approaches and whether some of the spirit of the originals had been lost.

As a long-time fan of SA jazz I was privileged to see Chris McGregor’s first Brotherhood of Breath in the early 70s and later Dudu Pukwana’s Spear and Zila and then from the 80s onwards I have seen Abdullah Ibrahim in many context’s including Ekaya and trio and solo gigs. Plus Hugh Masekela on many occasions and all backed up by a pretty comprehensive collection of recordings from the 40s right up to date.

And the last twelve months have been bookended by some great jazz influenced by the South African connection. In May I saw the great Loose Tubes reunion at Cheltenham – a band that was heavily influenced by the SA exiles. At Brecon I saw the Township Comets for the first time and as I write I have been listening to Julian Argüelles’ Let it be Told – re-workings of some of the great South African tunes by the Frankfurt Radio Big Band.

So where to start? For me I think the attraction of SA jazz comes from a wellspring of jazz that is partly classic US jazz, partly deeply African and partly political and radical. Basil “Mannenberg” Coetzee said “Something very strange, something incredibly beautiful happens to the sax when it reaches the point where it’s ‘Next Stop Soweto’ or ‘Next Stop Mannenberg.’ In the hands of a township player this horn starts to breathe with a different type of life, it fills out with all the dreams and all the pain we experience in the townships: then it’s no longer an American sax – it becomes our African Horn!”

The reason that we have such a strong SA influence on the British jazz scene and to a lesser extent on the US and European jazz scenes is because so many musicians were exiled because of the appalling apartheid regime in South Africa.

So if you were into jazz at all in the 60s, 70s and 80s it was hard to miss the meteoric effect the exiles had wherever they played on both audiences and on musicians. And both jazz audiences and musicians are were likely to be of a more radical persuasion than most.

So for me it was irresistible – jazz was already a brilliant find in the late 60s and the SA influence just provided something straight from the heart – compelling call and response hooks and repeating figures that made it hard to keep you feet and body still with the feeling that you had some connection, albeit at a distance, with a struggle for freedom – reinforced by the Anti-Apartheid movement that disrupted sporting events and held rallies that included great music – like Clapham Common in the 80s with Hugh Masekela and others. As Abdullah says “Ours is the only revolution that happened in four-part harmony.”

And what music! The Brotherhood of Breath were just electric live blending funky rhythms with the first free jazz I had ever heard – which held together – just. After gigs like the 100 Club or in the courtyard of the V&A (what a contrast between comparatively stuffy museum and joyous anarchic music) we’d walk away aping the band with mouth music. We all wanted to be in the brotherhood.

Thanks to Birmingham Jazz in the 80s I first saw Abdullah Ibrahim at the Strathallan Hotel literally a few hundred yards from where I was living at the time and later at the Grand Hotel. I’ve seen him numerous times since including memorably at the Jazz Café reunited with Basil Coetzee not that long before Basil’s untimely death.

And death has stalked the exiles based on more than just time passing. So many have passed like Basil before their time. All but Louis Moholo from the Blue Notes and numbers of others have gone. Perhaps like Kippie Moeketsi, sax player and “the father of South African music,” beaten into an early grave by a combination of being oppressed by apartheid, the pressures of exile and return and the uncompromising music business?

Which brings us back to the legacy of the exiles. It is heartening to see that the influence and the music of the exiles is being recognized and carried on in the UK and Europe. So although Peter is right to question what it means to have a South African themed festival outside of SA and what proportion of SA musicians should be involved, I think it goes beyond this.

The fact that many of the musicians are not South African can be seen in a positive way – to me it means that the music of SA and the townships is now firmly part of the jazz pantheon and the torch they are carrying means that the great originals’ music will be remembered and celebrated for a long time to come. But more than that it also means that jazz musicians, SA or not are not using the wellspring for new versions and new arrangements. That’s one of the ways jazz (and traditional music) flourishes – nourished by the past but renewed by new ideas.

Looking at it this way also puts some of the performances in last year’s London Jazz festival into perspective. I was lucky enough to attend one of the key days of the Festival – the first Saturday at the South Bank when the Dedication Orchestra played again after a long break (as did Loose Tubes last year – another band strongly influenced by the exiles), a tribute version of the Blue Notes performed and finally Abdullah Ibrahim closed the evening with solo, trio and band sets.

So the UK critical response of particularly the first and last of those was that they missed the spirit or lacked the drive of the originals – this latter said mainly about Abdullah’s gig. I think the criticism misses the point. South African jazz then and now is not one thing – nobody judges US or UL or European jazz by one yardstick so why should SA jazz be any different?

Township jazz alone does not define the music its made up of as many ingredients as there are people’s in Southern Africa. Its part kwela, part marabi, part bop, part church music, part Islamic, part mbaqanga and part folk singing with those just being some of the parts.

And some of the music has come about organically, in a folk style tradition – tunes that are played at shabeens and parties that are passed down from musician to musician but there is a large part of composition and arrangement. As well distilling the diverse influences of the Cape, Abdullah studied in New York with Hall Overton the classical music academic who also played jazz and who famously occupied one of the lofts in the Flower District where all the jazz greats of the late 50s and early 60s rehearsed and where Eugene Smith the driven photojournalist went to live and where he recorded the bands and shot many, may photographs – recently re-discovered and published as the Jazz Loft Project.

Abdullah himself refers to the composition aspect in an 80s documentary ‘A Brother with Perfect Timing,’ “We are sound scientists, we constantly take our music and analyse it, contrary to the idea that in Africa we just take up our saxophones and play. We put in a lot of time, study and analysis.” Taken with his studies in the US this is an important point to consider when you listen to his music. It is no accident that one of his most affecting pieces is called Water from an Ancient Well. So what he is always doing is synthesising from many deep sources.

And nothing he does is by accident. So what those who left early from his South Bank show and those who thought it disappointing were missing (apart from a fantastic performance) was that he was not there to be an entertainer – to provide a jolly Township time. As my South African friend who I went to the gig with said: “He is his own man – he says what he wants to say. He plays what he wants to play.”

The fact that this was a major concert hall and that Abdullah and all his musicians were in dinner jackets should have been the clue apart from anything else. Here was an African composer – perhaps the major African composer making a musical statement – and a gorgeous one at that – here is my music, here are my influences – here is ME. That fact that this was not a driving performance but a deeper more meaningful one, for me did not detract from it. Far from it I drank it in. His most recent CD , containing some of the music also played on that South Bank evening, is called The Song is My Story. Amen to that brother.

If you look at the Dedication Orchestra gig from the same perspective than the criticisms of it also dissolve. Her are a dedicated group of musicians keeping the spirit of the exiles alive, Dudu, Johnny, Louis, Nick, Mongezi, Chris and all the others who lit up the jazz world and brought South Africa to us.

They are not playing it exactly the way the Blue Notes or the Brotherhood of Breath played it. They have deep respect for the music and the compositions and they are keeping the music alive and vibrant and changing. My South African friend did not know what to expect, he didn’t think he would enjoy it that much. But after the first few chords a steady smile came to his face and he was in. That’s good enough for me.

So its nearly a year since the Loose Tubes gig (they are playing as I write at the Sage in Gateshead – wish I could have been there) and back to the Argüelles CD. Julian was another Loose Tubes alumnus who also played in latter iterations of the Brotherhood of Breath and who knows the music inside out. And it shows.

This is an absolutely consummate recording which takes some of the classic tunes and re-works them with stunning arrangements for the Frankfurt Radio Big Band. The band is joined by Argüelles himself on sax and conducting, his brother Steve on percussion and Django Bates on keys.

Each time you listen there is something new to admire in the brass and wood wind arrangements. Its Gil Evans, meets Mike Gibbs, meets Chris McGregor in a very good way.

Dudu’s Mra Khali and Diamond Express are given suitably hot but controlled arrangements with that essential Brotherhood call and response feel. Miriam Makeba’s Retreat Song is little played and I only knew her and the Manhattan Brothers’ versions – here it is done beautifully with a dancing swinging first section that changes pace and gives way to a harder, freer ending that suits the Zulu stick fighting theme of the original lyrics.

All the tracks are great but Abdullah’s The Wedding and Amabutho Trad/Joseph Shabatala stand out for me with gorgeous phrasing and arrangements. Rainer Heute (bass clarinet) plays an unbelievably breathy solo followed by Heinz-Dieter Sauerborn stating the them lovingly on alto. There are no stated solists on Amabutho just lovely ensemble playing.

All the feelings and influences are in there with almost a hymnal feel in places and its hard to keep still just like it was listening to the Brotherhood. Brilliant stuff and I’d love to hear this live. One of the best interpretations of the SA sound.

So I think we can say that the SA influence on jazz is in rude health and long may it continue. As Abdullah Ibrahim says: “The sound of the song forms a link between those who went into exile and those who stayed behind. Hopefully, Inshallah, after the revolution it will serve as a rallying point.”

After reading all the reviews and talking to others who raved abut the little Fuji X100S I finally took the plunge and got one. The price dipped from very expensive to a rather more reasonable “pricey but why not.”

And it is a revelation – the first digital camera to make me feel like its a real camera. Sure it is retro but in a good way with beautifully engineered and simple main analogue controls that allow some major settings to be done without diving into menus. The way you can set full auto – both aperture and speed dials to A or to choose aperture or speed priority by just setting the appropriate dial is brilliant and much better than Nikon or Canon can manage. The viewfinder is very clever with optical and electronic options. Optical is fine but I haven’t got to grips with the way the camera reframes to allow for parallax so I’m mainly using the very good EVF which is effectively “through the lens.”

Quality is excellent with a sharp little fixed 35mm equivalent lens and 16 megapixels in a cleverly designed sensor that is the same size as a Nikon DX (half frame) camera. I’ve really come to love the 35mm lens view from using the iPhone and also a prime 35mm lens on the Nikon D600.

But enough technical fluff, the real test is what is it like to shoot with? Absolutely brilliant is the answer. The closest experience to the way working with the old Nikon FMs in fact. It’s still early daysbut I like the feel of the images it produces and given it handles low light very well it is ok to set auto ISO within reason and just fire away.

I’ll post more images when I’ve had a chance to really push it but the moment here’s a couple of portraits.

]]>iPhone 5http://www.brianhomer.com/iphone-5/
http://www.brianhomer.com/iphone-5/#commentsFri, 14 Sep 2012 15:21:40 +0000http://www.brianhomer.com/?p=126Every time a new Apple product comes out those of us who are Apple users usually get that frisson “do I want one or do I need one?” It’s the same with the iPhone 5 that has just been announced.

There is usually something about new Apple kit that makes you want it but you don’t always need it straight away. And that’s the way I feel about the iPhone 5. I upgraded to an iPhone 4s as soon as it came out because it offered significant benefits and because I was at the end of a contract.

The 4s had a better camera and a better screen handy for taking and showing images. It was also faster. So I got one and it was a good decision. Recently I’ve had great success using it to take street photographs so will I be getting an iPhone 5?

I will in time but I’m not going to rush. It is faster again and a bit thinner and lighter and also taller to get a bigger screen for 16 to 9 movies. There is no real change with the main camera. Overall it’s a better device but I don’t watch movies on my ‘phone so the larger screen is pretty irrelevant (an extra 4 apps to view is neither here not there), and faster is good but for most things the 4s is already fast enough.

Then you have to factor in the extra cost which is not just about the handset which is already expensive. The connector is new so adapters will be needed plus I bought a £110 adapter to allow charging and aerial connection in the car not that long ago.

For owners of earlier models the balance will be different but for me I won’t be rushing to order or queuing up. I’ll happily carry on with the 4s at least until upgrade time.

In June I went to New York for only the second time, the first was 37 years ago. It was a great place then but this time I had chance to appreciate it at greater length.

New York, like Birmingham, is being continuously renewed with new people moving in from all around the States and the rest of the world. And, while you had to explain to Americans where Birmingham UK was 37 years ago, now many more know about our city.

It was the restless feel that got me taking pictures. I had a Nikon with me but I wanted to capture some street photographs in the style of the great shooters like Elliott Erwitt, Bruce Davidson, Lee Friedlander and Gary Winogrand.

And it turned out I had the perfect camera in my pocket the iPhone 4S. Trust me this is now a very usable photographic tool particularly in the good light you get in New York. And New York is quintessentially the place to do street photography.

As well as everybody being on the move they are also mostly in their own space and of course these days most are on their smart phones talking to their invisible friends. So having an iPhone in your hand is pretty inconspicuous. And now the iPhone camera can be triggered by the volume plus button it’s pretty easy to hold it in one hand using your thumb to fire it down at waist level. You have to get a feel for holding it level but with street shots it really doesn’t matter if they are not level and the randomness of what is in or out of the frame adds to the effect. Even the odd intrusion of your finger into the shot seems OK.

I use CameraBag a lot as an iPhone or iPad app or the desktop version. And rather than the one size fits all effect from Hipstamatic I find that I can see photographs that will fit and work well with the processing effects from the app. Far from being a cheat shooting on the iPhone and processing in the app feels similar to shooting film, imagining the image and then processing and printing in the darkroom. The filter I use most is Lolo as it enhances colours and turns pictures into almost abstract art. There are some examples of using this effect at: www.brianhomer.com/galleries/iphone-squares/

But for the street shots it immediately felt right to convert to black and white. At first I used the 1962 filter which apes old black and white contrasty images. On the iPhone these looked fine but on closer examination back in the UK they looked far to contrasty and I disliked the crop the filter had used.

So I re-edited and re-processed the original images using CameraBag 2 on the Mac. It produces exactly the same results but means you are not cluttering up the iPhone with multiple versions. This time I used the straight Mono filter with no cropping. I could have used Photoshop but I like the effect and it seems to suit the images well.

As well as grabbed from the hip street shots, some are more conventionally shot using the screen but I think they hang together as a set.

Back here in Birmingham I’ve started taking street pictures again with the iPhone. There’s a sample from the Jewellery Quarter below. Since I took it I have discovered another cool iPhone feature – you can trigger the shutter using the volume control on the headphones and I’m eager to try that out.